A Gamble with Life Part 56

"If she ever had any illusions."

"I am afraid she had, Beryl, I'm afraid she had. That was a most unfortunate adventure on the cliffs--most unfortunate," and Sir Charles turned again to the paper he had been reading.

Had the Tregonys been close observers they might have detected a forced and an unnatural note in Madeline's gaiety. She was mirthful at times when there appeared to be no sufficient reason for her mirth, and cheerful when the conditions were most depressing.

When alone in her own room she generally paid the penalty. Frequently her spirits sank to zero. The desire to help Rufus Sterne was natural enough; but her helplessness drove her almost to despair. She could not even help herself. In a sense she was as much in the toils of circ.u.mstance as he was. She not only wondered what would become of him, but what would become of herself.

The weeks were slipping away rapidly, and the Tregonys were beginning to talk about their return to England. The days were often almost insufferably warm, and the birds of pa.s.sage that crowded the hotels were beginning to take flight to more Northern lat.i.tudes. Day after day she had hoped she might discover some way of effecting her deliverance, but no way revealed itself. She was without a friend outside the Tregony family, and yet to return with them to Trewinion Hall would be to put herself in a position as intolerable as it would be compromising.

"What helpless things girls are," she would sometimes say to herself.

"If I were only a man I could snap my fingers at everybody. But because I'm a girl I can just do nothing."

She felt so miserable one morning that she refused everyone's company, and went out for a walk alone.

Sir Charles was very cross when he knew, and he was still more cross when lunch time came and she did not return. As the afternoon wore away and she did not put in an appearance, his anger gave place to anxiety, and ultimately to very serious alarm.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

OLD FRIENDS

"Well, I never! If this ain't the greatest surprise of the trip!"

Madeline looked up with a start. She recognised the American accent, before she had any idea she was being spoken to.

"Well, now, who _would_ have thought it? I regard this as a real streak of luck."

"What, Kitty Harvey?" Madeline exclaimed, in a tone of eager surprise.

"Oh, I am so glad!" And a moment later the two girls were embracing each other with a warmth and an effusiveness that would have done justice to an Oriental greeting.

"I spied you from the other side of the way," Kitty Harvey said at length, tears of genuine pleasure s.h.i.+ning in her eyes, "and I said to mamma, 'If that ain't Madeline Grover, then I'm the blindest c.o.o.n that ever walked in shoe leather.'"

"Is your mother here?" Madeline queried, eagerly.

"We're all here, my dear, a regular family party, with sundry relations to keep things lively. But here comes the little mother, two hundred pounds of her, and as cheerful as ever."

"But when did you come?"

"Cast anchor this morning, my dear. That's our yacht out yonder, flying the stars and stripes."

"What, that? I thought she was a transatlantic liner."

"Well, I guess she is, or something nearly related to it. But you should talk to d.i.c.k; he knows her from stem to stern, and from the keel to the captain's bridge."

"Then you are here on a yachting cruise?"

"That's what we are here on just. In fact we've been two-thirds round this globe already."

"And have you enjoyed it?"

"Off and on. There are drawbacks to everything, but in the main it's been just great."

Then Mrs. Harvey waddled up, panting, breathless, eager and happy. She almost smothered Madeline with kisses and talked incessantly between whiles.

"Kitty said it was you, and I said it wasn't. But you have improved. You see my sight is not quite as good as it used to be."

"Another of mother's compliments!" Kitty laughed.

"It's nothing of the sort," Mrs. Harvey protested. "I meant what I said, but I really must get my gla.s.ses strengthened."

"You must, mother. You really won't be able to recognise father at the rate you are going on."

"And you are still Madeline Grover? I don't want to be inquisitive my dear, but we understood, you know, you were coming across to marry a t.i.tle; was it a duke or a knight? I really get mixed up as to the order they stand in."

"I'm not going to marry either," Madeline said, impulsively. "I'm going to remain as I am."

"No-o?" from both mother and daughter.

"It's the honest truth."

"Well, with all your money you are independent of a t.i.tle, my dear,"

Mrs. Harvey said, absently.

"But I haven't any money," Madeline said, "except what my trustee allows me. But really, do you know for certain if I shall be well off when I come of age?"

"Don't you know yourself?"

"I really know nothing. Father never talked to me about money matters, and Sir Charles copies his example in that respect."

"Then you had better come and talk to my husband. If there's anything about money he doesn't know, I should like to discover it."

"I should like to see Mr. Harvey very much."

"Then come back and have lunch with us on the _Skylark_. There's plenty of room, and you'll be as welcome as the President of the United States."

"Oh, it would be just delightful," Madeline said, eagerly, "there's nothing I should enjoy so much."

Madeline was almost bewildered at the size and magnificence of the _Skylark_. Mr. Harvey, having struck a copper lode a few years previously, found himself with more money than he knew profitably how to spend, and with more time on his hands than he knew wisely how to use.

He built for himself a marble mansion in New York, and purchased one of the largest steam yachts that ever ploughed the seas, and was now doing his best to earn a night's repose by sight-seeing.

Peter J. Harvey welcomed Madeline on board the _Skylark_ with many expressions of delight. He was a typical American, tall, square-shouldered, and not over-burdened with flesh. He had straight hair, which he wore rather long, a clean-shaven face, a wide mouth, a strong, square chin, and a most refres.h.i.+ng American accent.

He was not exactly a vain man. At any rate, he did his best to keep his vanity under proper control, and if he boasted occasionally he believed he had something to boast of. He was still in the prime of life, being the right side of fifty by two or three years. Kitty was the eldest of six--three boys and three girls, the youngest, Bryant, having celebrated his seventh birthday two days before. Besides the family, there were numerous cousins and uncles and aunts, with others whose relations.h.i.+p to the Harveys was difficult to trace.

The lunch was set out in the grand saloon, and was served in the best style. The stewards wore bottle-green coats trimmed with gold braid.